A familiar Southbank landlord is the new owner of the Hilton Garden Inn and Homewood Suites at 1201 Kings Ave. in San Marco.

In early March, Lingerfelt CommonWealth Partners LLC, a commercial real estate investment firm based in Richmond, Virginia, purchased the 221-room, eight-story hotel for $24.7 million from San Marco Hotel Partners LLC, according to a press release from Berkadia Real Estate Advisors LLC, which represented the seller.

Lingerfelt CommonWealth Partners, through LCP Riverplace LLC and LCP 1200 Riverplace LLC, also owns Riverplace Tower and the Stein Mart Building, both on the Southbank.

“After a thorough and highly competitive process, our team was pleased to lead a complicated transaction to a highly successful closing for our client and the buyer,” said Dave Weymer, a managing director at Berkadia. “The institutional nature of these assets drove tremendous interest in the process and allowed the Berkadia Hotels & Hospitality team to maximize value for the owners.”

As of press time, according to the Jacksonville property appraiser, the 1201 Kings Avenue property is still owned by the Jacksonville Transportation Authority and San Marco Hotel Partners LLC in the care of David Wolfe, an attorney with Alex Brown Reality Inc. of Baltimore, Maryland, and its taxable value is $18.2 million. Alex Brown Realty is a privately-owned real estate investment manager, which was organized in 1972, according to its website. It has a “national footprint” and co-invests with clients and joint venture partners in properties located throughout the United States.

The dual-branded hotel, which offers select service and extended stays, was constructed in 2009 and is comprised of a 123-guestroom Hilton Garden Inn and a 98-suite Homewood Suites. Both facets of the hotel share an outdoor pool and fitness center. The Home-wood Suites offers its visitors a boardroom, business center and a lodge on the building’s main floor. Visitors of the Hilton Garden Inn are able to enjoy two meeting rooms as well as an onsite restaurant and lounge.

Commonwealth Lodging Management, the company’s hotel management affiliate, will operate the hotel, according to a press release from Lingerfelt CommonWealth Partners.

Although Lingerfelt owns the hotel, it does not own the land the hotel sits on. Due to a Public/Private Partnership between JTA and Chase Properties, a development firm owned by San Marco resident Michael Balanky, the property belongs to JTA and has been leased until 2046 by Kings Avenue Redevelopment LLC, which is also led by Balanky.

The complicated arrangement allows that the hotel owner is actually a tenant of Kings Avenue Redevelopment because the hotel was Phase I of the larger Kings Station Development, a master-planned project which got its start in 2005, according to chaseproperties.com. Phase I of the development included the dual-branded hotel, while Phase II, which has yet to be built, was to include apartments and retail, all within the close proximity of the adjacent Kings Avenue Garage and the nearby Skyway station.

Lingerfelt CommonWealth Partners is a vertically integrated, full-service real estate investment management firm with 60 years of experience, according to its website. In addition to its home base in Richmond, it has additional offices in Jacksonville, Nashville, Tenn., Tampa, Greensboro, N. Carolina, and Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Together with its predecessors in the private sector and public REIT sector, Lingerfelt’s partners have built, acquired, and managed nearly 20 million square feet of commercial real estate valued at approximately $2 billion across the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast, according to its website.

In addition to the two buildings on the Southbank, Lingerfelt’s property holdings include medical and professional offices, industrial, data and call centers, emergency care centers, elderly housing and nursing homes, and hospitality ventures located in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, Illinois, Tennessee, and Florida.

The Lingerfelt CommonWealth Partners website describes its firm this way: “With over half a century of deep institutional knowledge in all aspects of commercial real estate, Lingerfelt CommonWealth Partners combines its expertise with the energy of an entrepreneur. Building on the successes of the past, while adapting to changing markets, has allowed us to be selective in the opportunities we undertake, choosing only those that offer the greatest potential for our stakeholders.

“By maintaining the highest standards, and employing proven industry leaders, we’re able to provide our stakeholders with everything from deal capitalization, property, asset management to final disposition. Every activity is approached from the perspective of creating value.

“We are able to provide flexibility in how we execute transactions and act nimbly when opportunities emerge. Our ability to think like owners – because we are owners – has contributed to our achievements. To ensure every aspect of a property is managed to our exacting standards, we have assembled a full-service commercial real estate investment and operating platform.”